Amazon’s Fire HD 8 Kids Edition removes the stress of giving your child a tablet they can call their own

CNN

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Amazon ’ south Fire HD 8 and HD 8 Plus are two incredibly low-cost and capable tablets. so much so, CNN Underscored just named the HD 8 Plus our top foot for budget pill.

Due, in part, because of its $ 89.99 start price point, the HD 8 is a natural consideration for parents who are tablet shopping for their kids. If that ’ s you, don ’ t first-come-first-serve out and buy the standard Fire HD 8 or, even, HD 8 Plus for your kids .
rather, consider the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition. It ’ s a little more expensive but includes some features and guarantees that justify the total cost .

What makes a Kids Edition model so special?

Fire HD 8 Kids edition
Jason Cipriani/CNN
The Kids Edition bunch of the Fire HD 8 is $ 139.99, compared to the criterion price of $ 89.99 for a stand-alone adaptation of the like pill. here ’ s how Amazon justifies that $ 50 premium .
arguably the most attractive part of any Kids Edition device you buy from Amazon is the biennial worry-free guarantee that comes with it. If at any fourth dimension during those two years the tablet breaks, whether it ’ s from your child throwing it across the room, or it ’ second incidentally dropped in the pond, Amazon will replace it for release, no questions asked .
additionally, the Kids Edition comes with a case. There are three different colors of the case, including blue, pinko and purple .
ultimately, you besides get one year of Amazon ’ s FreeTime Unlimited service. FreeTime Unlimited provides parental controls along with access to Amazon ’ s kid-friendly library of books, videos, Audible books, apps and games. A catalog that totals 20,000 items, according to the company .
After the year of FreeTime Unlimited expires, you ’ ll pay $ 2.99 a calendar month to keep access to the serve .
We ’ ve used FreeTime Unlimited for the past several years and can say Amazon ’ s parental controls combined with the curated library is one of the best implementations we ’ ve used .
You set up a visibility for each child that will be using the – you can besides control their use on Echo devices, Fire television, Kindle, Android and io – by assigning an age, setting usage hours including a bedtime when the pill will lock itself, add or remove specific content and limit or approve access to specific apps, like the web browser or television camera .
With a profile frame-up, you can then use the Parents Dashboard to view usage and align controls .
The controls aren ’ t the best depart, though. You can view the specific apps or books your child is spending their time in, and the Parent Dashboard will provide you with questions to ask your child about it. For exercise, if your child has been reading “ Diary of an 8-bit Warrior, ” the Dashboard suggests asking “ Why does Runt want to be a warrior ? What does he need to do to be one of the top five students ? ” along with a couple more questions.

Without actually sitting down and reading the ledger yourself, there ’ s no way you ’ d know what to ask about, early than “ How ’ s the book ? ”

Performance and battery life

Fire HD 8 Kids edition
Jason Cipriani/CNN
As we noted in our Fire HD 8 review, you shouldn ’ metric ton expect this pad to be extremely potent or impressive. That said, you and your children will have no issues using Amazon ’ s own cortege of apps and services, along with the apps that are available in Amazon ’ s Appstore .
The Fire HD 8 runs on Android, but Amazon has built and customized its own manoeuver system on top of it, called FireOS. Those customizations mean you won ’ triiodothyronine find any of Google ’ s own apps, like YouTube Kids, in the Appstore. But, you will find most of the staple apps like Facebook and Zoom for the adults, and Roblox for the kids .
Because not all developers list their apps in Amazon ’ randomness Appstore, we are unable to run Geekbench 5, our standard benchmarking platform to measure performance .
Loading and switching between apps international relations and security network ’ thyroxine going to blow you away with rush, but after a day or two of using the tablet, you won ’ t even notice the slender delay .
The 8-inch display has a resolution of 1200×800, or just slightly higher than 720p HD. Text is clear, but not excessively sharp and colors are bright, but not what we ’ d call vivid. It ’ randomness thoroughly enough, though .
You merely have one memory option and that ’ s 32GB. You can add up to 1TB of extra repositing via the microSD card slot, which is more than enough for reasonably much any game, book or video your child can consume. There ’ randomness a earphone jackfruit, USB-C port for charging and data transfer, a power button and volume controls on the leave side of the pill when you ’ re using the case ’ s built-in stand .
As separate of CNN Underscored ’ s testing, we run a battery life benchmark that involves playing the like video on repeat with display luminosity set to 50 % and airplane mode enabled. We ran the lapp test during our regular HD 8 and HD 8 Plus review, with the tablets lasting 9 hours and 40 minutes and 9 hours and 38 minutes, respectively .
The Kids Edition, however, lasted 10 hours and 41 minutes. It ’ randomness indecipherable why there ’ randomness any difference in battery operation since it ’ s effectively the same accurate pad as the Fire HD 8. regardless, our tests don ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate picture that any of the Fire HD 8 tablets lasted the advertise 12 hours, although closely 11 hours of use is nothing to discount rate .

Bottom line

Fire HD 8 Kids edition
Jason Cipriani/CNN
The Fire HD 8 Kids Edition combines an attractive price with peace of mind, parental controls and insight into precisely what your child is doing on their tablet.

between battery life and slow but reproducible performance, the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition is certain to make any parent – or child, for that matter – felicitous .
If you need more than one Kids Edition, you can buy two Kids Edition tablets, mixing and matching any of the colors, for $ 209.98. You aren ’ metric ton limited to the color combinations that are shown on the Amazon list. Just add two tablets to your handcart and you ’ ll see the deduction at checkout .
note : The prices above reflect the retailers ’ listed prices at the time of publication .